On this day in history

May 18

29 births · 13 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Eurovision Song Contest 2021

5 years ago

Born this day

1920

John Paul II

Would be 106

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Oldest record

1121st

Konstantinos VII

birth anniversary

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Famous births29

AD 905 · 1121 yrs

Konstantinos VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Medieval Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Πορφυρογέννητος, romanized: Kōnstantīnos Porphyrogénnētos; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 54

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1294 · 732 yrs

Charles IV of France

Charles IV (18/19 June 1294 – 1 February 1328), called the Fair (le Bel) in France and the Bald (el Calvo) in Navarre, was the last king of the direct line of the House of Capet, King of France and King of Navarre (as Charles I) from 1322 to 1328.

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RoyaltyDied aged 33

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1711 · 315 yrs

Ruđer Josip Bošković

Roger Joseph Boscovich (18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa. He studied and lived in Italy and France where he also published many of his works.

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ScienceDied aged 75

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1850 · 176 yrs

Oliver Heaviside

Oliver Heaviside ( HEV-ee-syde; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was a British mathematician and electrical engineer who invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 74

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1860 · 166 yrs

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (Italian:; 19 May 1860 – 1 December 1952) was an Italian statesman, who served as the prime minister of Italy from October 1917 to June 1919. Orlando is best known for representing Italy in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference with his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 92

View profile Photo (modified): Camera dei Deputati · Public domain

1868 · 158 yrs

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918) was Emperor of Russia from 1 November 1894 until his abdication in 1917. He was the last Russian monarch before the Russian Revolution and oversaw the Russian Empire's participation in World War I.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 50

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1872 · 154 yrs

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was an English mathematician and philosopher. A founder of analytic philosophy, he was a leading philosopher of the 20th century who produced pioneering work in logic, set theory, and philosophy of language.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyDied aged 97

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1876 · 150 yrs

Hermann Müller

Hermann Müller (18 May 1876 – 20 March 1931; ) was a German Social Democratic politician who served as foreign minister (1919–1920) and was twice chancellor of Germany (1920, 1928–1930) during the Weimar Republic. Müller rose quickly through the ranks of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) after joining it in 1893.

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PoliticsWould be 150

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1883 · 143 yrs

Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (German:; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture.

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ArtWould be 143

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1891 · 135 yrs

Rudolf Carnap

Paul Rudolf Carnap (German:; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German philosopher and logician who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism.

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PhilosophyWould be 135

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1895 · 131 yrs

Augusto César Sandino

Augusto César Sandino (Latin American Spanish:; 18 May 1895 – 21 February 1934; Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino) was a Nicaraguan revolutionary, founder of the militant group EDSN, and leader of a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the United States occupation of Nicaragua.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismWould be 131

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1897 · 129 yrs

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Italian-born American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind several major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s.

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FilmWould be 129

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Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths13

1781 · 245 yrs

Túpac Amaru II

Túpac Amaru II (born José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera or José Gabriel Túpac Amaru, c. 1742 – May 18, 1781) was an Indigenous cacique who led a large Andean rebellion against the Spanish in Peru as self-proclaimed Sapa Inca of the new Inca Empire.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 43

View profile Photo (modified): Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain

1799 · 227 yrs

Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (pronounced; né Caron; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French playwright and diplomat of the Age of Enlightenment.

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LiteratureDied aged 67

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1909 · 117 yrs

Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (Spanish:; 29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish virtuoso composer, conductor, and pianist. He is one of the foremost composers of the post-romantic era who also exerted a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 48

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1909 · 117 yrs

George Meredith

George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist.

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LiteratureDied aged 81

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1910 · 116 yrs

Eliza Orzeszkowa

Eliza Orzeszkowa (6 June 1841 – 18 May 1910) was a Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivism movement during the foreign Partitions of Poland. In 1905, together with Henryk Sienkiewicz, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 68

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1911 · 115 yrs

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler (German:; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 50

View profile Photo (modified): Moritz Nähr · Public domain

1922 · 104 yrs

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran

Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (18 June 1845 – 18 May 1922) was a French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 76

View profile Photo (modified): Laveran.jpg : Eugène Pirou (1841–1909) derivative work: Materialscientist ( talk ) · Public domain

1941 · 85 yrs

Werner Sombart

Werner Sombart (German:; 19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a German economist, historian and sociologist. Head of the "Youngest Historical School," he was one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Nicola Perscheid · Public domain

1973 · 53 yrs

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973) was an American politician and women's rights advocate who became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916 for one term, then was elected again in 1940.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismWould be 146

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1981 · 45 yrs

William Saroyan

William Saroyan (August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American novelist, playwright, and short story writer of Armenian descent. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 118

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2007 · 19 yrs

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (French:; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991.

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ScienceWould be 94

View profile Photo (modified): Dominique Morisseau Laboratoire de Physique et d'Etude des Matériaux (LPEM) ESPCI Paris 10 rue Vauquelin 75005 Paris, Fr · CC BY-SA 4.0

2009 · 17 yrs

Velupillai Prabhakaran

Velupillai Prabhakaran (26 November 1954 – 18 May 2009) was an Eelam Tamil nationalist, revolutionary and guerrilla leader. A major figure of Tamil nationalism, he founded and led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 71

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Showing 12 of 13

Events5

1565 · 461 yrs

Siege of Malta

The Great Siege of Malta (Maltese: L-Assedju l-Kbir) occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months, from 18 May to 8 September 1565.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1944 · 82 yrs

Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

During the Sürgünlik ("exile"), at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars were subjected to ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide through deportation carried out by Soviet Union authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

History

1980 · 46 yrs

Gwangju Uprising

The Gwangju Uprising, also known in South Korea as the May 18 Democratization Movement (Korean: 5·18 민주화 운동), was a series of student-led demonstrations that took place in Gwangju, South Korea, in May 1980, against the coup d'état of May Seventeenth by Chun Doo-hwan that strengthened his power.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2006 · 20 yrs

Eurovision Song Contest 2006

The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the 51st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of a semi-final on 18 May and a final on 20 May 2006, held at the O.A.C.A. Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece, and presented by Maria Menounos and Sakis Rouvas.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

2021 · 5 yrs

Eurovision Song Contest 2021

The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 was the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of two semi-finals on 18 and 20 May and a final on 22 May 2021, held at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and presented by Chantal Janzen, Edsilia Rombley, Jan Smit, and Nikkie de Jager.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

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